Lie means to be in a flat position or to get into one yourself; lay means to put something down, so lay always has an object after it. The forms add to the confusion: lay is also the past tense of lie. There is also lie meaning to say something untrue, and its forms are lied, lied.
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lie (lay, lain) + on/in + place; lie down; lay (laid, laid) + object + on/down; lie to + person (lied, lied)
- After the long flight, I just wanted to lie on the bed and sleep.
- Please lay the documents on my desk before the meeting starts.
- Yesterday I lay in the sun for an hour and got badly sunburnt.
What changed
First versionI was tired, so I laid on the sofa and watched a film.
RevisionI was tired, so I lay on the sofa and watched a film.
The speaker got onto the sofa themselves, and there is no object, so the verb is lie, whose past form is lay. Laid is the past of lay, to put, and it must be followed by what was put somewhere: I laid my bag on the sofa. The two verbs mean different things, but their forms overlap, and that is where the mistake comes from.
Lie meaning to say something untrue has its own forms: He lied to me about the price. For a short rest, people usually say lie down: I need to lie down for ten minutes. Lay appears in fixed phrases: lay the table means to put plates and cutlery on it before a meal.
Your turn
Could you ___ the baby on the bed while I get her clothes ready?
Show the answer
lay — Here someone is being put down, and the baby comes after the gap. That verb is lay. Lie means to be in a flat position yourself and cannot take the person being put down after it.
Describe your evening after a hard day. Say where you put your things and use both past forms: laid and lay.
When I got home, I laid my laptop bag on the chair and lay on the sofa for half an hour.
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